Ironman anniversary for Oakwood Hills' Giulianos

Like most newlyweds, Ryan and Jacqui Giuliano dreamed of celebrating their first year of marriage in some island paradise.

But any similarities with other couples ends there. Because other couples don’t go to Kona, Hawaii, to push themselves to physical extremes, in 90-degree heat, the day before their anniversary the way the Giulianos will.

Their trip to Hawaii is not only for celebration, but for competition.

On Saturday, the day before their anniversary, the Giulianos will compete in the Ironman World Championships, the ultimate such race in the world, comprised of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run.

It is the first trip to Kona for both of them. Ryan completed one full ironman race before; this is Jacqui’s first full ironman. When they left the church on their wedding day, almost a year ago, the plan was set in motion.

“Ryan said, ‘Kona’s going on today,’ ” Jacqui said. “I said it would be fun to be there next year. He took it as us racing, and I was just thinking of going for fun. He took me totally seriously. He said, ‘We’ll find a coach.’ ”

The Giulianos, who live in Oakwood Hills, will have six family members with them in a five-bedroom house for several days: Jeff and Linda Aubert (Jacqui’s parents), Jerry Giuliano (Ryan’s father), Jerry and Katie Giuliano (Ryan’s brother and sister-in-law) and Ace Giuliano (Ryan’s grandfather) will join them.

Jacqui is a 2004 graduate of Crystal Lake South. She was a distance star for the Gators who ran for one year at Mississippi State, then transferred to Illinois. Ryan, a 2003 graduate of Conant, also ran at Illinois, which is where they met.

Ryan gravitated toward triathlons when he was in college and competed as a professional for a while after graduation. He works for PowerBar as a nutrition technical representative with marketing and sales events. Jacqui, who remained more of a runner through college, teaches seventh-grade math at Aptakisic Junior High in Buffalo Grove.

“Ryan started coaching me for the Chicago Marathon in 2007, but I did something to my Achilles and couldn’t run,” Jacqui said. “Ryan had me doing bike and elliptical workouts and swimming. At the end of my senior year, he said, ‘Why don’t we do a half ironman?’ So we drove to Buffalo Springs, Texas, and I missed qualifying by nine seconds.”

The Giulianos did not want to do two full ironman triathlons in one year, so they decided to try and qualify together from the EagleMan Half Ironman event in Maryland in June.

“They keep dropping the number of half triathlons that you can qualify from for Kona,” Ryan said. “Most of the full ironmans have 60 to 75 slots [for Kona], so you can place third or fourth in your age group and still make it. At the half ironmans, they only have about 30 slots, so basically, if you don’t win your age group, you’re most likely not going to qualify.”

So what if only one of them had qualified?

“We didn’t really talk about it,” Ryan said with a smile. “It was kind of the unspoken topic we had going on. ‘We’re both going to qualify,’ was our mindset.”

It was close for both, but they made it.

“It came down to the last mile for me,” Jacqui said. “I ended up passing a girl who was far ahead of me in the last mile. She was such a good swimmer. We had similar bike splits, but she was far ahead of me on the swim. I was really lucky I had a good run that day. Ryan didn’t have good run.”

The next week, Jacqui suffered injuries and a concussion from a training accident on her bike, although she made the most of it. The concussion and swelling on her face made running more painful.

“That made me like swimming more. I could do that because nothing irritated me,” said Jacqui, who won the Milwaukee Marathon a week before they were married. “I hated swimming to that point.”

The Giulianos’ flight left Chicago on Tuesday. They were set to go through Portland to Honolulu and then to Kona. They planned to get acclimated with the area and ride part of the bike route before Saturday.

“The training for this has been really intense,” Ryan said. “This [anniversary] will be hard to top. We may just have to make this an annual trip.”